Peter Coffman
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petercoffman.bsky.social
Peter Coffman
@petercoffman.bsky.social
2K followers 1.1K following 1.1K posts
Architectural Historian; Supervisor of History & Theory of Architecture program @carleton.ca‬. https://carleton.ca/aah/people/peter-coffman/ Photographer. Pilgrim. Occasionally a writer. Chief of Staff to two cats. Photos mine unless otherwise credited.
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petercoffman.bsky.social
For @julialaite.bsky.social : warm wintery greetings and wishes from snowy Ottawa!
View from above of fields and trees covered in snow on a sunny winter day.
January 26, 2026 at 1:33 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Four days into 2026, and I already need a timeline cleanse.

Here are some nice arches in the Real Alcázar in Seville.

May the path ahead be this smooth, for all of us! Or at least, smoother than it currently looks.
A series of arches recedes into the background, all covered with a smooth, warm finish, bathed in soft, gentle light.
January 4, 2026 at 2:36 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Speaking of #ThomasBecket (and who isn’t, on the 855th anniversary of his martyrdom?), this stained glass window in @cburycathedral.bsky.social was long thought to be a nearly contemporary portrait of him. Alas, Rachel Koopmans has shown it to be a C20 forgery by Samuel Caldwell.
A stained glass window depicts a bearded bishop wearing a mitre, with one hand raised. The colours are predominantly blue and green, with some red and white.
December 29, 2025 at 3:21 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
I received the most touching Christmas message from my employer this morning. I feel so valued.
An e-mail reading: "Dear Peter, Final Reminder As of today, there are outstanding final grade(s) for Fall 2025. Please submit the outstanding grade(s) without further delay. Approval for an extended submission deadline must be discussed with your Associate Dean.
December 25, 2025 at 9:34 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Happy 182nd birthday to one of greatest stories ever written. A Christmas Carol was released on December 19, 1843, and sold out by Christmas Eve.
A red book with gold lettering reading “A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens”, surrounded by a gold laurel wreath.
December 19, 2025 at 11:08 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Yes, Wells is a real treasure…. 😍
View from a high vantage point along the nave of a Gothic Cathedral. The stone surfaces are massive but very richly textured. At the end of the nave is an inverted ‘scissor arch’, inserted centuries after construction when the crossing tower showed signs of sinking (and eventual collapse). View from a low vantage point up a very aged flight of stone stairs that lead through a Gothic doorway to more stairs, and also fan off to the right towards a very elaborate door (the entrance to the chapter house). Detail of an intricately carved stone capital depicting windswept foliage. The foliage is not naturalistic, but evoke a bubbling sense of life and growth. View of the twin-towered facade of a Gothic Cathedral. The surfaces themselves are highly sculptural - and also covered with figural sculpture. In these it resembles french Gothic, but the lack of extreme height and the persistent horizontal articulation identify it as English.
December 19, 2025 at 2:11 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
My breakfast had its very own Shroud of Turin.
The imprint of several baked items, including four distinct croissants, on a sheet of parchment paper.
December 16, 2025 at 3:53 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
It works really well as a beacon. The trade-off is that it compromises the original vision and unity of the building. But not by as much as I thought it would.
A concrete building with cliff-like surfaces presenting a geometrically and texturally complex and varied façade is adjacent to a glass tower wth a colourful human figure projected through the surface. All are lit by warm, late-afternoon sunlight.
December 13, 2025 at 3:35 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Catching The Once at Manotick United Church, part of the Festival of Small Halls.
Three musicians on a stage lit by multi-coloured lights with a Gothic window behind.
December 7, 2025 at 1:21 AM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Geneviève Bergeron
Hélène Colgan
Nathalie Croteau
Barbara Daigneault
Anne-Marie Edward
Maud Haviernick
Maryse Laganière
Maryse Leclair
Anne-Marie Lemay
Sonia Pelletier
Michèle Richard
Annie St-Arneault
Annie Turcotte
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz
A lush bouquet consisting of a variety of white flowers amidst dark green foliage against an intense white background.
December 6, 2025 at 12:57 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Built Heritage Committee Chair @rawlson.bsky.social welcomes students from our 2nd-year core course to City Hall this morning as they prepare to present their research findings to staff. As always, the councillor and the staff were an inspiration!

@carletonfass.bsky.social
A group of students sit in chairs facing a long wooden desk beyond which a well-dressed man speaks to them.
December 3, 2025 at 12:43 AM
petercoffman.bsky.social
For #SteepleSaturday this week: St. Mary’s, Auburn, Nova Scotia, built 1790.
A simple but handsome wooden tower, clad in clapboard, is viewed at a steep angle from below. Atop it is a slender, needle-like spire on an octagonal base. All are painted white with occasional black accents, and are brightly sunlit against a dark, moody sky behind and above.
November 29, 2025 at 1:44 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
I got to spend some time with Colleen Jones in 2009 when she did a story for the CBC about a historic Nova Scotian church that was being dismantled and sold to an American buyer. She was smart, kind, energetic, funny, curious and empathetic. RIP.

👇 She interviews the rector who authorized the sale.
Colleen Jones, dressed in blue jeans, a bright red coat and matching beret, looks thoughtful as she speaks with a man in a black coat and grey cap. The latter has his back to the viewer. Behind them is a small, historic wooden church that has been stripped of its siding and is most of the way to being completely dismantled.
November 26, 2025 at 2:52 AM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Well, this should be fun!
A screen with the words The Paradoxes of Trinity College Chapel/Peter Coffman” in front of a chapel apse with a rib vault and gothic windows.
November 20, 2025 at 1:20 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
But it looks like I’ll have to get up even earlier, and speak for longer, than I had planned….
A line from a conference program reading: “Final remarks/Trinity Chapel - 5:10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Peter Coffman
November 19, 2025 at 4:10 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Union Centre Building, Winnipeg.
A colourful mural painted on the exterior brick wall of an otherwise bland office building depicts labourers going about their work amid banners reading “United we stand”, “Unions make work better”, Prison bars cannot confine ideas”, “We fight for the right to a living wage”, and "One for all all for one”. A newspaper headline proclaims “City on Strike”.
November 17, 2025 at 3:02 AM
petercoffman.bsky.social
I have to admit I find it a bit creepy that MS Word is now offering to help me summarize, find key insights and questions in, and prepare me to discuss a document that I’ve written myself. I suppose that if I’d used AI to write it, I’d also need AI to tell me how to discuss it. 🤷‍♂️
An on-screen computer prompt offering help to “summarize this document”, “Find key insights and questions”, and “Prep me to discuss this document"
November 13, 2025 at 3:48 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Scott was also, very late in his career, architect of Trinity College Chapel at the University of Toronto. Nov. 20 will mark the 70th anniversary of the consecration of the chapel, and the College will host the symposium "Sacred Space: Conflicts and Convergences”. I will be one of the speakers.
An austerely impressive Gothic chapel viewed from the back through a pointed arch toward the altar and three stained glass windows.The walls are plain and unadorned, with emphatic vertical articulation between bays. The vault is a simple quadripartite rib vault.
November 9, 2025 at 3:03 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Of course, Canadian architecture is also this:
A gleaming glass building with a deeply curved facade is framed by more conventional rectilinear concrete and glass skyscrapers beyond. Mining infrastructure rises above a lot horizon and is brightly sunlit against a sky with wispy clouds. A picturesque row of varied commercial facades, some ornately decorated, stands out in bright sunlight against a dark sky with some clouds. A very simple log cabin, broad and low, its facade interrupted with nothing but two perfectly symmetrical rectangular windows, sits on a well-manicured lawn.
November 9, 2025 at 1:05 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
"Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!"
A ruined Gothic monastery is silhouetted against a dark sky, its pointed windows open to an empty void.
November 8, 2025 at 5:45 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
I’m getting ready to co-teach our new course on Canadian architecture.

So, What *is* Canadian architecture?

Well, it’s a long story. Or rather, *many* long stories.
A lone, weathered grain elevator sits against a rolling, undulating, barren mandscape. A singloe road winds around it and into the distance. A slightly warm-tinted black & white photograph of an ornate, three-story wooden building. The lower two stories are white with pronounced dark trip around all of the many windows. The upper story is darker and has very large Serliana windows. The roof has a robust and picturesque skyline of towers and turrets, silhouetted against a dark sky with stormy grey clouds that seem to be in motion. A wooden gabled building facade with a gently sloping roof is perfectly bisected by a tall and very ornately carved totem pole. The sky behind is dark with billowy white clouds. A curvilinear, undulating, sheer white building facade contrasts starkly with the dark sky above. The facade is without any features such as window or ornament, Its white mass sits like an iceberg on the street.
November 8, 2025 at 1:05 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
And….
A highrise apartment block with a huge mural of Leonard Cohen on the side.
November 5, 2025 at 6:25 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
The idea could have legs….
A view of the trilithons of Stonehenge, with the title ‘Stonehenge’ and the postal code ‘Wiltshire SP4’ inscribed on one of them.
November 5, 2025 at 5:34 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Happy Day of the Dead, if that’s not too paradoxical a sentiment.

👇Hillside Cemetery, Dawson City, Yukon.
In the foreground, a simple wooden grave marker with the name “John Carpenter” leans to one side, weathered with age. Beyond it, several similar markers are softly out of focus. The lawn below is covered in flowering weeds.
November 2, 2025 at 2:26 PM
petercoffman.bsky.social
Not an original idea, but I used ‘Moving Surfaces’ to frame the Aberdeen Pavillion for the ‘Lansdowne’ photo in Andrew Waldron’s architectural guidebook, ‘Exploring the Capital’. The piece does act as a visual and imaginative anchor for the place.
A rhythmically undulating arc of steel in the foreground frames a brightly sunlit traditional, barn-like building in the distance.
November 2, 2025 at 1:53 PM